This invention relates to a blood oxygenator test device, and more particularly, to a simulator for testing the efficiency of such oxygenators.
Blood oxygenators are devices used during cardiopulmonary or heart-lung bypass surgery to oxygenate blood received from a patient. Membrane oxygenators of the type sold by Travenol Laboratories, Inc., under Catalog No. 5M0316 are representative of such oxygenators.
In order to select an oxygenator for use under varying surgical conditions, it is important to know the efficiency and operating characteristics of the oxygenator. Fundamentally, blood oxygenators are gas transfer devices in which carbon dioxide (CO.sub.2) is removed from "deoxygenated" or venous blood and is replaced by oxygen (O.sub.2) to provide "oxygenated" or arterial blood. In order to accurately evaluate the gas transfer efficiency of an oxygenator, it is necessary to provide a test device which supplies carefully conditioned blood to the oxygenator under test. The blood conditions which are carefully controlled are saturation, pH, oxygen pressure (pO.sub.2) and carbon dioxide pressure (pCO.sub.2).
Oxygenators are presently tested by placing a live animal on a heart-lung bypass to provide a living "deoxygenator" which supplies venous blood to the oxygenator under test. The range of test conditions possible with experiments using live animals is limited by the metabolic rate of an anesthesized animal and the narrow limits over which inspired gases can be varied. These limitations on the range of test conditions prevents meaningful testing of oxygenators under carefully controlled conditions.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide an oxygenator test apparatus which permits the testing of oxygenators over a wide range of test conditions.
These and other objects of this invention will become apparent from the following description and appended claims.